Ontario’s clinical trials community has been hard at work improving efficiencies for the start-up and conduct of high-quality clinical trials. Programs including CTO Stream and QuickSTART have seen major gains, including promoting a 90-day overall start-up time and enabling multi-site studies to add rescue sites in as little as one week. Now, industry is bringing a new platform to the mix, with the aim of furthering efficiencies and improving collaboration between sponsors and sites.
The Shared Investigator Platform (SIP) is a business solution designed to reduce administrative tasks and facilitate collaboration between research sites and industry sponsors. Initially part of the Transcelerate initiative and now owned by Cognizant, the cloud-based solution enables a single sign-on across multiple sponsors and their tools, and reduces redundant requests for information through automation and re-use of data. Pharmaceutical companies are embracing the platform as an industry-wide solution, including Merck, a multinational pharmaceutical company that conducts trials in Ontario.
According to Martine Regoli, Clinical Research Manager at Merck, SIP will provide trial sites with benefits such as increased visibility to sponsors for upcoming studies, shorter feasibility surveys, electronic access to training documents, and more.
Other pharmaceutical companies transitioning to the SIP include Amgen, Lilly, Roche, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
“We’re always looking for ways to help sites spend more time on trials, and less time on administration. Innovations like SIP and other programs will strengthen Ontario’s competitive advantages by moving trials forward more quickly and efficiently without compromising quality,” said Regoli.
Linnea Aasen-Johnston, CTO’s Industry Outreach Associate added, “The Shared Investigator Platform fits well with CTO’s strategic priority of streamlining processes. We see the platform as an important initiative that will lead to decreasing workload and increasing collaboration between sponsors and investigators. When combined with our QuickSTART program, adoption of the SIP can lead to improved timelines and less work intensive study start-up.”
Learn more about how your site can register with SIP here.
Related Story: Successful QuickSTART pilot delivers faster clinical trial start up times in Ontario